Banco

Banco (It.), a commercial term meaning the standard money in which a bank keeps its accounts, as distinguished from the current money of the place. The distinction was more necessary when the currency was depreciated, or when it consisted, as it often did, of clipped, worn, and foreign coins. These the early banks (Venice, Amsterdam, &c.) received at their intrinsic worth, and credited the depositor in their books with this bank-value. The term was chiefly applied to the money in which the Hamburg bank kept its accounts, before the adoption of the new universal coinage of the German empire. It was not represented by any coinage. See also BANC.